by Ishmael Beah
On the first morning of clearing, Gibrilla’s uncle assigned each of us a portion of the bush to be cut down. We spent three days cutting down our portions. He was done in less than three hours.
When I held the cutlass in my hand to start attacking the bush, Gibrilla’s uncle couldn’t help himself. He burst out laughing before he showed me how to hold the cutlass properly. I spent restless minutes swinging the cutlass with all my might at trees that he would cut with one strike.
The first two weeks were extremely painful. I suffered from back pains and muscle aches. Worst of all, the flesh on the palms of my hands was peeled, swollen, and blistered. My hands were not used to holding a machete or an ax. After the clearing was done, the bush was left to dry. Later, when the cut bush was dried, we set fire to it and watched the thick smoke rise to the blue summer sky.
Next we had to plant cassava. To do this, we dug mini-holes in the ground using hoes. To take a break from this task, which required us to bend our upper bodies toward the ground for hours, we fetched cassava stalks, cut them into shorter pieces, and placed them in the holes. The only sounds we heard as we worked were the humming of tunes by expert farmers, the occasional flapping of a bird, the snaps of tree branches breaking in the nearby forest, and hellos from neighbors traveling the path either to their own farms or back to the village. At the end of the day, I sometimes would sit on a log at the village square and watch the younger boys play their wrestling games. One of the boys, about seven, always started a fight, and his mother would pull him away by his ear. I saw myself in him. I was a troublesome boy as well and always got into fights in school and at the river. Sometimes I stoned kids I couldn’t beat up. Since we didn’t have a mother at home, Junior and I were the misfits in our community. The separation of our parents left marks on us that were visible to the youngest child in our town. We became the evening gossip.
“Those poor boys,” some would say.
“They aren’t going to have any good complete training,” others would worriedly remark as we walked by.
I was so angry at the way they pitied us that I would sometimes kick their children’s behinds at school, especially those who gave us the look that said, My parents talk about you a lot.
We farmed for three months at Kamator and I never got used to it. The only times that I enjoyed were the afternoon breaks, when we went swimming in the river. There, I would sit on the clear sandy bottom of the river and let the current take me downstream, where I would resurface, put on my dirty clothes, and return to the farm. The sad thing about all that hard labor was that, in the end, it all went to ruin, because the rebels did eventually come and everyone ran away, leaving their farms to be covered by weeds and devoured by animals.
It was during that attack in the village of Kamator that my friends and I separated. It was the last time I saw Junior, my older brother.
7
THE ATTACK HAPPENED unexpectedly one night. There hadn’t even been any rumors that the rebels were as close as fifty miles from Kamator. They just walked into the village from out of nowhere.
It was about 8:00 p.m., when people were performing the last prayer of the day. The imam was oblivious to what was going on until it was too late. He stood in front of everyone, facing east, vigorously reciting a long sura, and once prayer had started, no one was allowed to say anything that was not related to the performance of the prayer. I didn’t go to the mosque that night, but Kaloko did. He said that upon realizing that the rebels were in the village, everyone quickly and silently left the mosque, one at a time, leaving the imam by himself as he stood there leading the prayer. Some people tried to whisper to him, but he ignored them. The rebels captured him and demanded to know what parts of the forest people were hiding in, but the imam refused to tell them. They bound his hands and feet with wire, tied him to an iron post, and set fire to his body. They didn’t burn him completely, but the fire killed him. His semi-burnt remains were left in the village square. Kaloko said he saw this from the nearby bush where he hid.
During the attack, Junior was in the verandah room where all five of us slept. I was outside, sitting on the steps. I had no time to go look for him, since the attack was sudden, but instead had to run into the bush alone. That night I slept by myself, leaning on a tree. In the morning I found Kaloko, and together we returned to the village. The semi-burnt body of the imam, as Kaloko had described it, was there in the village square. I could see the pain he had felt by looking at the way his teeth were bared. All the houses were burned. There wasn’t a sign of life anywhere. We looked in the thick forest for Junior and our friends, but they weren’t anywhere to be found. We stumbled across a family we knew and they let us hide with them in the bush by the swamp. We stayed with them for two weeks, two weeks that felt like months. Each day went by very slowly as I busied myself thinking about what other possibilities lay ahead. Was there an end to this madness, and was there any future for me beyond the bushes? I thought about Junior, Gibrilla, Talloi, and Khalilou. Had they been able to escape the attack? I was losing everyone, my family, my friends. I remembered when my family moved to Mogbwemo. My father held a ceremony to bless our new home. He invited our new neighbors, and my father stood up during the ceremony and said, “I pray to the gods and ancestors that my family will always be together.” He looked at us, my mother held my little brother, and Junior and I stood next to each other with toffee in our mouths.
One of the elders stood up and added to what my father had said: “I pray to the gods and ancestors that your family will always be together, even when one of you crosses into the spirit world. To family and community.” The old man raised his open hands in the air. My father came over and stood by my mother and motioned for Junior and me to come closer. We did, and my father put his arms around us. The gathering clapped and a photographer took a few snapshots.
I pressed my fingers on my eyelids to hold back my tears and wished that I could have my family together again.
Once every three days we visited Kamator to see if people had returned, but each visit was in vain, as there wasn’t a sign of a living thing. The silence in the village was too scary. I was scared when the wind blew, shaking the thatched roofs, and I felt as if I were out of my body wandering somewhere. There weren’t footprints of any kind. Not even a lizard dared to crawl through the village. The birds and crickets didn’t sing. I could hear my footsteps louder than my heartbeat. During these visits, we brought with us brooms so that we could sweep away our footprints as we went back to our hiding place to avoid being followed. The last time Kaloko and I visited the village, dogs were feasting on the burnt remains of the imam. One dog had his arm and the other his leg. Above, vultures circled, preparing to descend on the body as well.
I became frustrated with living in fear. I felt as if I was always waiting for death to come to me, so I decided to go somewhere where at least there was some peace. Kaloko was afraid to leave. He thought that by leaving the bush we would be walking toward death. He decided to stay in the swamp.
I had nothing to carry, so I filled my pockets with oranges, tied the laces of my tattered crapes, and I was ready to go. I said goodbye to everyone and headed west. As soon as I left the hiding area and was on the path, I felt as if I was being wrapped in a blanket of sorrow. It came over me instantly. I started to cry. I didn’t know why. Maybe it was because I was afraid of what might lie ahead. I sat on the side of the path for a while until my tears were gone, and then moved on.
I walked all day and didn’t run into a single person on the path or in the villages that I passed through. There were no footprints to be seen, and the only sounds I heard were those of my breathing and my footsteps.
For five days, I walked from dawn to dusk, never coming in contact with any human being. At night I slept in abandoned villages. Every morning I made my own fate by deciding which way I was going to go. My goal was to avoid walking in the direction from where I had come. I ran out of oranges on the first day, but I collected more at e
very village that I slept in. Sometimes I would come across cassava farms. I would uproot some and eat them raw. The other food that was available in most villages was coconut. I didn’t know how to climb a coconut tree. I had tried, but it was just impossible, until one day when I was very hungry and thirsty. I arrived at a village where there was nothing to eat except for the coconuts that sloppily hung from the trees, as if teasing me, daring me to pluck them. It is difficult to explain how it happened, but I mounted the coconut tree quite fast and unexpectedly. By the time I realized what I was doing and thought about my inexperience in this particular art, I was already at the top of the branches and plucking coconuts. I climbed down just as quickly and looked around for something to crack them with. Luckily, I found an old machete and got to work on the coconut shells. After I was done snacking, I found myself a hammock and rested for a while.
I got up well rested and thought, I think I have enough energy now to climb and pick more coconuts for the road. But it was impossible. I couldn’t even climb past the middle of the trunk. I tried again and again, but each attempt was more pitiful than the last. I hadn’t laughed for a long time, but this made me laugh uncontrollably. I could have written a science paper on the experience.
On the sixth day, I came in contact with humans. I had just left the village that I slept in the previous night and was on my way to look for another one when I heard voices ahead of me, rising and fading as the wind changed direction. I got off the path and walked carefully, minding my footstep on dried leaves in the forest to avoid making any sound. I stood behind the bushes, watching the people I had heard. There were eight of them down at the river, four young boys about twelve years old—my age—two girls, a man, and a woman. They were swimming. After observing for a while and determining that they were harmless, I decided to go down to the river for a swim as well. In order to avoid scaring them, I walked back to the path and headed toward them.
The man was the first to see me. “Kushe-oo. How de body, sir?” I greeted him. His eyes searched my smiling face. He didn’t say anything and I thought maybe he didn’t speak Krio. So I said hello in Mende, my tribal language.
“Bu-wah. Bi ga huin ye na.” He still didn’t respond. I took my clothes off and dived into the river. When I rose to the surface, all of them had stopped swimming but remained in the water. The man, who must have been the father, asked me, “Where are you from and where are you going?” He was Mende and he understood Krio very well.
“I am from Mattru Jong and I have no idea where I am going.” I wiped the water off my face and then continued, “Where are you and your family headed?” He ignored my question by pretending he didn’t hear me. I proceeded to ask him if he knew the fastest way to Bonthe, an island in the south of Sierra Leone and one of the safest places at that time, according to hearsay. He told me that if I kept walking toward the sea, I would eventually find people who might have a better understanding about how to get to Bonthe. It was clear from the tone of his voice that he didn’t want me around and didn’t trust me. I looked at the curious and skeptical faces of the children and the woman. I was glad to see other faces and at the same time disappointed that the war had destroyed the enjoyment of the very experience of meeting people. Even a twelve-year-old couldn’t be trusted anymore. I got out of the water, thanked the man, and was on my way, heading in the direction he had pointed that led toward the sea.
Sadly, I do not know the names of most of the villages that sheltered and provided me food during those times. No one was there to ask, and in those parts of the country there weren’t any signs that said the name of this or that village.
8
I WALKED for two days straight without sleeping. I stopped only at streams to drink water. I felt as if somebody was after me. Often, my shadow would scare me and cause me to run for miles. Everything felt awkwardly brutal. Even the air seemed to want to attack me and break my neck. I knew I was hungry, but I didn’t have the appetite to eat or the strength to find food. I had passed through burnt villages where dead bodies of men, women, and children of all ages were scattered like leaves on the ground after a storm. Their eyes still showed fear, as if death hadn’t freed them from the madness that continued to unfold. I had seen heads cut off by machetes, smashed by cement bricks, and rivers filled with so much blood that the water had ceased flowing. Each time my mind replayed these scenes, I increased my pace. Sometimes I closed my eyes hard to avoid thinking, but the eye of my mind refused to be closed and continued to plague me with images. My body twitched with fear, and I became dizzy. I could see the leaves on the trees swaying, but I couldn’t feel the wind.
On the third day, I found myself in the middle of a thick forest, standing beneath huge trees whose leaves and branches made it difficult to see the sky. I didn’t remember how I had gotten there. Night was approaching, so I found a suitable tree that wasn’t too high to climb; it had weaved branches with another to form something like a hammock. I spent the night in the arms of those trees, between earth and sky.
The next morning I was determined to find my way out of the forest, even though my back ached painfully from sleeping in the trees. On my way, I came to a spring that ran from under a gigantic rock. I sat by it to rest, and there I had eye contact with a huge dark snake that retreated behind the bush. I found a long strong stick to protect myself as I sat playing with leaves on the ground to avoid bringing up thoughts that occupied my mind. But my mind continued to torment me, and every effort to clear away the terrible thoughts was in vain. So I decided to walk, tapping the ground with the stick I held. I walked all morning and into the evening, but in the end found myself at the same place where I had slept the previous night. That was when I finally came to accept that I was lost and it was going to take a while to get out of where I was. I decided to make my new home a little bit more comfortable by adding leaves to the weaved branches to make them less hard to sleep on.
I walked around to familiarize myself with my vicinity. As I was getting acquainted with my new home, I cleared the dried leaves. Then I took a stick and drew lines on the ground from my sleeping place to the spring where I had met my new neighbor, the snake. There was another one drinking water and it became motionless upon seeing me. As I went about my business, I heard it crawling away. I drew lines by parting the dried leaves on the ground. These lines helped me from getting lost in between the spring and my sleeping place. After I finished familiarizing myself with the area, I sat down and tried to think about how I was going to get out of the forest. But that didn’t go well, since I was afraid of thinking. I eventually decided that maybe it was better to be where I was. Even though I was lost and lonely, it was safe for the time being.
Along the spring there were several trees with a ripe fruit that I had never seen. Birds came to eat this strange fruit every morning. I decided to try some of it, since it was the only edible thing around. It was either take the chance and eat this fruit that might poison me or die of hunger. I decided to eat the fruit. I thought if the birds ate it and lived, maybe I could, too. The fruit was shaped like a lemon, with an outer layer of mixed colors of yellow and red. Inside was a crusty, watery, fruity part with a very tiny seed. It smelled like a mixture of ripe mango, orange, and something else that was irresistibly inviting. Hesitantly, I plucked one and took a bite. It didn’t taste as good as it smelled, but it was satisfying. I must have had about twelve of them. Afterward, I drank some water and sat waiting for the result.
I thought about when Junior and I had visited Kabati and would take walks with our grandfather on paths around the coffee farms by the village. He would point out medicinal leaves and trees whose barks were important medicines. During each visit, Grandfather always gave us a special medicine that was supposed to enhance the brain’s capacity to absorb and retain knowledge. He made this medicine by writing a special Arabic prayer on a waleh (slate) with ink that was made of another medicine. The writing was then washed off the slate, and that water, which they called Nessie, was put
in a bottle. We took it with us and were supposed to keep it a secret and drink it before we studied for exams. This medicine worked. During my primary-school years and part of my secondary-school years, I was able to permanently retain everything that I learned. Sometimes it worked so well that during examinations I could visualize my notes and all that was written on each page of my textbooks. It was as if the books had been imprinted inside my head. This wonder was one of many in my childhood. To this day, I have an excellent photographic memory that enables me to remember details of the day-to-day moments of my life, indelibly.
I looked around the forest for one of the medicinal leaves that Grandfather had said remove poison from the body. I might need it if the fruit I had eaten was poisonous. But I couldn’t find the plant.
Nothing happened after a couple of hours, so I decided to take a bath. I hadn’t had time to take one for a while. My clothes were dirty, my crapes were rotten, and my body was sticky with dirt. When I first threw water on my skin, it became slimy. There was no soap, but in the forest there was an area that had a particular kind of grass that could be used as a substitute. I had learned about this grass during one of the summers when I visited my grandmother. When I squeezed a bunch of the grasses together, they provided foam that left my body with a fresh scent. After I had finished taking a bath, I washed my clothes or, rather, soaked and spread them on the grass to dry. I sat naked, cleaning my teeth with sapwood. A deer came by and watched me suspiciously before it went about its affairs. I resisted thinking by listening to the sound of the forest as songs of birds collided with the shouting of monkeys and the cackle of baboons.
